


Books By Their Covers

by wldnst



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Libraries, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 04:30:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wldnst/pseuds/wldnst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Albus Severus Potter became an Auror, he had certain expectations. Researching crup fighting in the ministry library with Scorpius Malfoy was not among them. Or: Albus Severus Potter is not his father. Scorpius Malfoy is not his, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Books By Their Covers

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on livejournal, August 2011.

When Albus became an Auror, he had somewhat stupidly assumed it would be a lot like being at Hogwarts, and even more like his father’s stories of being an Auror: having adventures, fighting evil.  
  
The assumption proved stupid for two reasons, if you disregarded the obvious reason it was stupid (being that it was an assumption): (1) Dad’s memories of his time in the Corps proved to be extremely skewed--which is to say, his memories of the Aurors proved to be _inaccurate_ , an inaccuracy that was exacerbated by the fact that crime levels had gone down since the tenuous post-war years; (2) even though he was only two years out of Hogwarts, Albus’ memories of school proved to be similarly inaccurate; and (3) the Aurors were a government institution. Maybe it was simple naivete (it _was_ simple naivete), but really.  
  
At least that’s what Stella told him, when Albus came to her to gripe about the research for his latest insignificant job.  
  
“You just need to go to the Ministry Library,” she said. “It’s really lovely Al.”  
  
“Are you quite sure you can’t do it?” he’d asked, and earned himself a look that would turn trees into wilting violets.  
  
Hugo had sided with Stella. Ever since they’d married he’d been fixing Albus with a baleful look whenever disagreements surfaced and mouthing the word “sex.” Albus was not actually able to read lips, but Hugo had helpfully explained it to him (“It’s wonderful,” he whispered, and Albus had stopped him right there.)  
  
So if anyone asked, that was how Albus ended up in the lift to the Ministry Library, which he was certain was located on a sad and dusty floor where no one ever went.  
  
He turned out to be wrong, to the degree that the library appeared to be well dusted (by, Aunt Hermione would later claim, uncompensated house elves), and someone must have done sort of magic on the windows, because they were larger and better illuminated than made logical sense, given that, as far as Albus knew, the floor the Ministry Library was located on was no larger than any other floor at the Ministry, and, furthermore, there was another building next door that blocked most natural light.  
  
Then again, maybe it was, because besides the large windows there were vast shelves, with ladders running along on rollers, waiting to be summoned.  
  
And there was Scorpius Malfoy, wearing wire-rimmed spectacles, sitting at the long wooden counter at the fore of the room. He didn’t see Albus; Albus didn’t want to see him, and ducked behind a bank of shelves.  
  
He knew Scorpius Malfoy was the ministry librarian. Everyone knew--when Julia Buchner had passed and Malfoy had been named her successor, it had made the third page of the _Prophet_ (Minute Ministry Minutes). Third page, bottom of column three, but it had been a prime piece of gossip shortly thereafter, so there was that. Albus had actually persuaded his rubbish bin to release that copy of the _Prophet_ to confirm the news. He’d ironed out the sheet of paper and there it was, one line: _**Scorpius Malfoy** will be replacing **Julia Buchner** as Head Librarian at the Ministry, making him the youngest ever Ministry Head Librarian...Looks like the Malfoy fortune is waning, if the heir needs to look to MoMCSS for income._  
  
MoMCSS stood for Ministry of Magic Codex Sorting System. Albus realized he couldn't care less, and returned the paper to the bin promptly. The bin then proceeded to spit up the spoiled beans from yesterday on him, and Albus had quietly blamed Malfoy for the whole ill-fated endeavor, for the fact that, Harry Potter’s son’s greatest travails were an ornery rubbish bin and the fact that his boss assigned him what could only be termed as shit cases.  
  
Which brought him to the library, where Malfoy was peering at a large volume and jotting quick notes with his left hand. He was wrinkling his nose to keep his glasses up, and he looked vaguely constipated.  
  
Albus snorted into the stacks, and then he felt like he was spying. It was--there was no reason for it. In school their relationship had been one of mutual dislike, because their fathers had been enemies or whatever and Albus thought someone ought to carry on the tradition, since James showed no interest and Rose and Stella seemed to consider Malfoy something of a friend (Rose and Scorpius were also academic rivals, but Rose always insisted it wasn’t that competitive, just, _you_ know).  
  
It turned out to be good that Albus choose to carry on the tradition, because Scorpius was a right twat and apparently Albus was the only one to notice. He had replaced the Malfoy’s blood-based system of judgment with something based on the number of OWLs or NEWTs obtained, and Albus came to dread shared Slytherin-Ravenclaw classes solely for Scorpius’ withering glances whenever Albus was called on to answer a question.  
  
So if he was spying, it was because it simply won’t do to have Malfoy stumble upon Albus in his domain without knowing precisely what he was doing--and Albus didn’t quite know what he was doing.  
  
Actually, Albus was supposed to be breaking up a crup-fighting ring. And in truth, he had already broken up a crup-fighting ring. It was simple, really: (1) obtain crup; (2) bring crup to dog park while dressed as shadily as possible (Albus had magicked himself a temporary tattoo expressly for this purpose, although he had rather liked it and had yet to remove it); (3) get crup to bite something; (4) reap rewards. Repeat steps one through three as necessary for a crup fighter to notice your crup and, subsequently, invite you to a fight. The problem was that now he had to write a report on crup-fighting and wizarding culture and whether it was related to Muggle dog fights and what sort of policies should be implemented to prevent crup fighting in the future.  
  
Albus wished he could go back to fighting his crup, which James had christened Teeth, because he bit less when he occasionally had the opportunity to sink his teeth into another crup. But that was not the sort of thing one went about saying, especially to Rose or one’s boss. Still, thus far Teeth had damaged every piece of furniture in Albus’s flat, with the exception of the rubbish bin and the ottoman that smelled strongly of floral perfume.  
  
Books on crups, if Stella was to be believed, should be filed under Beasts, Magical, Forked Tails, _Canis domesticus magus_ (their Latin name).  
  
Crup fighting, conversely, would be filed under Activities, Games and Sports, Magical, Pugnacious, Beasts.  
  
Writing those two pieces of information down on a scrap of parchment was the sole help Stella had offered, but when Albus attempted to locate both of those sections he had no luck at all, and wound up somewhere in Dysfunctions, Physical, Sexual.  
  
Which is where Scorpius Malfoy found him. He had a small cart of books trailing after him like a lost dog, making small whining noises as it rolled along on its undersized wheels, and he looked at Albus with something akin to amusement, if the amusement were mingled with dislike and perhaps a certain degree of smugness.  
  
“Albus,” he said. “I know the _Prophet_ ’s been taking your break-up rather well, but wouldn’t they be interested to know it was because you--ah, how do you say?--because your wand wasn’t working properly.”  
  
The break-up was a year ago, maybe more. Even Sean doesn’t care particularly anymore--even _Albus_ doesn’t care anymore, and he probably took the whole thing worse. Albus tries not to look incredulous. He’s not sure if he manages, but Scorpius and his cart have halted in front of him like they’re both waiting for something, so Albus eventually says, “I’m looking for books about crup fighting.”  
  
“Crup fighting, Potter,” Malfoy replies. “Are you certain you aren’t compensating for something?”  
  
“It’s for a job,” Albus says flatly, and then he holds out the note from Stella. “Stella said I might find them here.”  
  
Malfoy takes the parchment from him, pushes his eyeglasses up his nose, and inspects it.  
  
“She would have been right last week, but--” Malfoy says. “Because of the lunar phase, they’ve been moved.”  
  
Albus had actually stalled a week before coming to the library, and as he trails after Malfoy he considers commenting on it.  
  
“Stella gave me that note a week ago,” he says eventually, and Malfoy nods.  
  
“I thought so,” he says. “Longbottom knows MoMCSS as well as I do. So this just makes you a lazy arse.”  
  
Albus considers defending himself, but Malfoy’s jab is mild, and he’s trying not to act like a schoolboy, and so instead he just says, “It’s Weasley, now,” even though Malfoy has to know because he was at the wedding. Malfoy does something only slightly more cultured than grunting, and Albus follows him through a warren of shelves until they reach Beasts, Crups, Fighting which is--  
  
“The week leading up to the full moon is always the most sensible,” Malfoy says. And then he and his cart disappear.  
  
Well, they don’t disappear exactly. They rattle off to another bank of shelves, and Albus chalks that up as one surprisingly non-hostile interaction with Malfoy. Although Albus didn’t talk much, which may explain it. He pulls books off the shelf at random, and goes to the front to check them out. There’s a witch there who Albus doesn’t recognize, examining her fingernails, and when Albus piles the books on the counter she glances at his ID badge disinterestedly before flicking her wand and marking them all as checked out.  
  
“Due in two weeks,” she says without meeting his eyes. “Looks pretty dull. I expect you’ll be returning them earlier.”  
  
“I wish I could return them earlier,” Albus mumbles, and shifts them to his hip to carry them back to his cubicle.  
  
Most of the books prove to be either completely useless or impossibly dry, but there’s one that’s relevant and traversable, at the very least, so Albus brings that home.  
  
It should come as no surprise that Teeth eats it. He does it while Albus’s asleep, and by the morning the volume is almost completely mangled, and there are fat drops of saliva on the cloth cover. Teeth is sleeping curled around it, and Albus is certain that no spell on earth could fix the book when half of it is currently being digested.  
  
He’s not sure what he’ll tell Malfoy, which maybe explains why he lets Teeth carry the book around the flat for the next two weeks. The crup seems to have grown attached to it, and he doesn’t gnaw terribly much on it or anything else, though Albus does come home one evening to find that Teeth is apparently mating with it. He makes a silent pact with himself never to tell Stella or anyone else, and then he pats Teeth on the head, changes out of his Auror robes and in to a jumper and jeans, and goes down to The Flying Ford Anglia to see if Hugo’s there.  
  
The Flying Ford Anglia is Hugo’s bar, named for a story Uncle Ron likes to tell. It was christened Diagon Alley’s new hot spot by _The Daily Prophet_ , and by _The Quibbler_ a bar, owned by Hugo Weasley. Which is, frankly, good enough for Albus.  
  
Also, Hugo makes his own butterbeer, and it tastes like sunshine. Although Albus only says that when he’s very, very drunk.  
  
“Stella said you had to go to the Ministry Library,” Hugo says when he takes a break from tending bar to slide into a booth with Albus. He looks tired and happy, which is how he looks most of the time these days, and Albus kind of envies him. “Sorry about that, mate. How’s Malfoy?”  
  
“Probably pissed at me, now,” Albus says, taking a swig from whatever it is that Hugo’s brought him, some mixture of something. “Teeth ate one of the books.”  
  
“I can’t believe you’re keeping him,” Hugo says. “That Crup is terrible.”  
  
“But what am I supposed to do with him?” Albus asks.  
  
“Beatrice Ballificent’s Home for Magical Beasts, mate,” Hugo replies. “That’s where Rose used to volunteer.”  
  
Albus thinks of Teeth, who is white with liver and black spots and one ear that won’t stay up, and feels inexplicably fond of him. Hugo shakes his head.  
  
“You’re worse than the wife,” he says, and Albus wishes Hugo would stop calling Stella ‘the wife’ and he knows it’s a newlywed thing (because Stella told him, because Stella said “It’s a newlywed thing, he’ll get over it”), but it’s still stupid. “With your lost causes.”  
  
“Teeth is not--” Albus starts.  
  
“Teeth ate an entire pair of trousers,” Hugo says. “Give it up.”  
  
Albus is not willing to give it up, but it is true that Teeth ate an entire pair of trousers. They were his favorites, too.  
  
“Where is Stella?” Albus asks, instead, and Hugo shrugs.  
  
“Studying, yeah?” he says. “Exams coming up. They’re on the DRAGONs.”  
  
And it doesn’t--it doesn’t feel like exam season, which makes Albus realize how long exactly he’s been away from school, and it’s strange to remember that in Stella’s endless quest for graduate degrees she still hasn’t gotten around to not being in school. Hugo grins at him like he’s thinking the same thing.  
  
“Glad it’s not me,” he says. “But she likes it.”  
  
Hugo runs his hands along the dark wood of the booth, almost thoughtful, and then he glances up and then hisses at Albus, “Don’t look now, but your pal Malfoy is here.”  
  
Albus doesn’t look.  
  
“Does he come here a lot?” he asks, instead.  
  
“Sometimes, yeah,” Hugo replies. “I’m not going to turn him away, am I? He’s Stella’s friend. And Stella says we owe him one, since he lends her the books she can’t get at the uni library even though she doesn’t work for the Ministry.”  
  
Albus really needs to take a moment and discuss that with Stella because if Malfoy grants her special favors Albus may need to call in a special favor, what with Teeth eating that book and all.  
  
Malfoy’s weaving through the crowd, a flash of bright blond hair that stops intermittently to talk with--a pair of Ravenclaws, a girl dressed in bright colors who might be the one who checked out Albus’s books at the library, Henryk Zabini. Henryk is sitting at the bar and within easy view from Albus’s booth--he and Malfoy join their heads together, dark and pale, discussing something.  
  
“Are they friends?” Albus asks Hugo, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the pair, because he doesn’t recall them being friends at Hogwarts. Henryk had been in Albus’ house, and he wasn’t all bad--a little mercenary, but completely transparent about it, and when he and Albus had gotten very drunk at a house party and woken up wrapped around one another Henryk and kissed him hard and said they didn’t need to talk about it.  
  
“Hell if I know,” Hugo mumbles. “Not like I keep tabs on them or anything.”  
  
Albus watches them for a moment, then turns back to Hugo and drinks the last swallow of his drink, which burns more than all the previous sips combined. When he comments on it, Hugo just nods.  
  
“Neat bit of magic,” he says. “Uncle George came up with it, and Stella did a bit of arthimacy for us. Alcohol content increases in direct proportion to how much you’ve already had to drink.”  
  
That sounds like a _terrible_ bit of magic. Albus’s surprised Stella went along with it, but then not surprised at all, because the last time he saw Stella’s mother, Professor Lovegood, she spent most of the time looking at things that weren’t there and doodling arthimacy equations in the air.  
  
Hugo goes back to the bar and leaves Albus there, drinking quietly. A few of his old housemates come over--Patrick Nott and Louise Trapper--and they talk briefly and superficially, and when Albus is finished with his dinner and the live music starts up, he leaves. On the way out he catches another glimpse of Malfoy leaning on the bar, all sharp angles of elbows and hips and nose. He’s not wearing glasses, and Albus envies him for that--every healer Albus went to talk to about it told him his eyesight was to bad for any sort of cure, or even Muggle contact lenses, something about nearsightedness and astigmatisms and terrible, terrible eyesight, how did he even do anything when his vision was that bad. His father had vaguely apologized, waving his hand and saying Albus got it from him, great genes, all that.  
  
Malfoy, though, sans glasses, is sliding out onto the dance floor with Zabini, who suddenly stops and waves to Albus, which means Albus has to weave his way through the crowd to them, because it would probably be interpreted as some sort of slight if he didn’t.  
  
“Scorpius,” he says, nodding. “Henryk.”  
  
“Al,” Henryk says. “I suppose I shouldn’t say fancy meeting you here, seeing as your Hufflepuff friend owns it and all.”  
  
“No,” Albus says dryly. “I suppose you shouldn’t.”  
  
“How have you been?” he asks, reaching out to put a hand on Albus’ shoulder, and Albus wonders if he’s suddenly decided he’s wanted a repeat performance, even though Albus doesn’t remember precisely what the performance was. It was sixth year, after Albus declared himself gay, before he started dating Sean Thomas. Frankly, Albus is pretty certain the sex was terrible.  
  
“I heard about the break-up,” Henryk finishes, and Albus wonders why two people, now, have brought up something that happened a year ago like it’s fresh news.  
  
“Yes, a year ago,” Albus says. “I’m fine.” He glances at Scorpius, who looks faintly annoyed, and takes a step back from Henryk. “I’ll let you two get to the dance floor, then.”  
  
“Nice to see you,” Henryk says, not taking his eyes off Albus’ face, and then he catches Scorpius’ hand and leads him away.  
  
“Your books are due in one week, six days,” Scorpius calls as he leaves. “Don’t forget.”  
  
Albus eventually gets a notice from the Ministry Library about the books, which are now overdue and will be fined at the rate of one knut per day. He already knew they were overdue, because the stamps on the cover that said ‘Checked Out’ had started flashing ‘Due’ and then ‘Overdue’, but he’d stuck them underneath a couch cushion and pretended it wasn’t happening. When he gets the notice it is then, and only then, that he goes to see Malfoy. He splays the remaining books across the desk and looks down at Malfoy, who is peering up at him over the silver frames of his glasses. Reading glasses, it figures.  
  
“My krup ate the other book,” Albus says.  
  
“And which book would that be?” Malfoy asks, and Albus blinks.  
  
“ _A History of Crups in Culture_. Ah--”  
  
“Michaelsen, I’ll expect,” Malfoy interjects. “And you didn’t read the backflap.”  
  
“What?” Albus asks.  
  
“Crup pheromones,” Malfoy says. “You need to be careful with that one.”  
  
That does explain some things. When Albus looks back at Malfoy, he might be grinning--not smirking, but grinning properly, but it’s a foreign expression on Malfoy’s face, so Albus’s not entirely sure.  
  
“Potter,” he says. “Were you _afraid_ to tell me?”  
  
It’s no use lying.  
  
“The book’s completely destroyed,” Albus says.  
  
“Honestly, Potter,” Malfoy says. “It was outdated, anyway. You’d be better off with--” Malfoy pauses and hums to himself. “Follow me.”  
  
This week the books are back where Stella said they’d be, the first week, so they wind up in Activities, Games and Sports, Magical, Pugnacious, Beasts, with Scorpius pulling volumes off the shelves and piling them in Albus’ arms.  
  
“I don’t understand why you didn’t take these the first time around,” he says. “Really, do you Slytherins not know how to read?”   
“Your parents were both Slytherins,” Albus points out helpfully, and Scorpius shoots him a scowl.  
  
“When I said ‘you Slytherins,’” he says. “I meant you specifically.”  
  
“Then what does my house have to do with it?” Albus asks, disgruntled. First year he had hated his house, but somewhere in there he came to terms with it, and then he developed something that could be only described as house spirit.  
  
Mostly because it was either that or let James make him feel ashamed for the rest of his life, and Albus figured if he was going to be in Slytherin for the next six years he might as well accept it and move on to better things, like embarrassing James in front of every potential girlfriend ever (why Violet kept him remains a mystery).  
  
“If you were a Ravenclaw,” Scorpius says. “I wouldn’t even have to ask that question.”  
  
“Not all Ravenclaws like reading,” Albus counters.  
  
And then he feels--he’s trying to rise above schoolboy whatevers. Fighting about houses feels like going back to first year, and Albus is _not going to fall for it_.  
  
“Are there any more books I should be looking at?” he says, looking down at the heap in his arms.  
  
“This will do for now,” Scorpius replies. “Let me know what you think when you’re done with them, and I’ll see if there’s anything else that would help.”  
  
It all sounds surprisingly helpful, and Albus tries not to let his astonishment show on his face.  
  
“Thanks,” he says, and Scorpius shrugs.  
  
“Let it not be said that I never did anything for our esteemed Auror Corps,” he says, and then leads Albus back to the counter, where he himself checks out the books.  
  
“Bring them back on time this time,” Scorpius tells him after the books are stamped. “I added something a little extra to the charm.”  
  
“Of course you did,” Albus mutters, and Scorpius looks up at him with a smirk.  
  
“Red is really not your color,” he says, instead of anything to do with their conversation. Albus pretends he doesn’t hear, because he’s heard it before. Usually he just says “Good thing I didn’t wind up in Gryffindor, then,” but he’s not sure what Scorpius would do with that, and he would say “Blue isn’t yours” but that’s not precisely true.  
  
The deep blue librarian robes actually suit Scorpius. Albus doesn’t want to talk about it, or think about it, or look at it any longer than necessary. He goes back to his office, wades through the books--which are tomes, really, too long and too dense, but he manages to extract bits and pieces of useful information from them, though he still feels like the information he’s finding is somewhere besides the point. Because he’s just not a Ravenclaw. He doesn’t like collecting knowledge, only wades through books gleaning information to the extent that it’s useful or interesting. That doesn’t make him _dumb_.  
  
He mentions that to Stella when he meets her at The Flying Ford Anglia for dinner.  
  
“You aren’t dumb. No one thinks you’re dumb,” she says, fixing him with an even stare. Stella’s eyes have always been too large for her face and an unnervingly pale blue, and for a long time Albus had trouble holding her gaze for extended periods of time.  
  
He does, still.  
  
“Scorpius thinks I’m dumb,” he says.  
  
“No he doesn’t,” Stella says, and reaches across the table to give Albus’ hand a squeeze. “You know he’ll help you if you just ask.”  
  
But Albus doesn’t _want_ to ask for Scorpius Malfoy’s help.  
  
“Albus,” Stella says. “Scorpius Malfoy is a Ministry Librarian. It’s his _job_ to help Ministry employees with research.”  
  
“Malfoy, again?” Hugo asks, sliding into the booth besides Stella. “Al, really.”  
  
“Really what?” Albus asks, because he is really not sure.  
  
“You realize Scorp is Stella’s friend, right? He’s coming by in a couple days for dinner.”  
  
Albus looks between the pair of them. Stella shrugs.  
  
“It’s true.”  
  
It’s not surprising. Albus doesn’t know why he feels surprised.  
  
“You should come,” Hugo says. “Maybe the pair of you could get along if you weren’t in school. You have a lot in common.”  
  
“Being gay is not a lot in common,” Albus mutters, looking down at his plate of food. Half the chips are getting cold. He can practically see them getting cold, grease congealing on the potato skins.  
  
“You both are very concerned with your fathers’ opinions,” Stella offers in the way she does, saying something mildly that cuts to the very quick.  
  
Albus is not--but he is. Half the reason he joined the Aurors was for adventure, but he also joined it to prove something to Harry, that the strange, worried look in his eye when Albus had flooed home after the sorting to tell his parents he was in _Slytherin_ was all for naught.  
  
Before he got on the train Harry had knelt down and told Albus that the Hat would listen if Albus said he didn’t want to be in Slytherin.  
  
The thing that Albus suspected his father knew was that by the time the Hat got off his head, Albus _wanted_ to be in Slytherin. He had the option, Slytherin or Hufflepuff, and he picked the den of snakes.  
  
And by the time he graduated, he liked it. He liked his housemates, because he knew where he stood with them, and for the most part they respected him, which was all he really wanted. He was a Chaser on the House team. He was Quidditch Captain. His house expected him to lead the team to victory, the expectation was clear and simple and there were no caveats--he wasn’t expected to be everyone’s friend, or to be a particularly brilliant example, or to be anyone other than Albus Severus Potter.  
  
Sixth year, when he came out, his mum had folded him up in her arms and said it was okay, like something was wrong, and his dad had studied him and nodded succinctly, like Albus was confirming expectations. His house immediately began to shift the gossip about his relationships in the direction of his orientation, and otherwise their treatment of him hadn’t changed at all. Even his siblings and cousins had taken time to adjust, like they suddenly weren’t sure who he was. Outside his house, only Stella took it in stride, saying, “Well, of course,” and continuing with the conversation they had been having.  
  
“So you’ll come, then?” Stella asks, now, and Albus blinks back at her.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Our flat,” Hugo says. “Tuesday night.”  
  
Albus completely, absolutely does not want to go, but he doesn’t see how he has any choice.  
  
“I can bring dessert,” he replies.  
  
Albus takes Teeth out for a walk that night, casts an illusion on the forked bit of his tail and clips him to his thin leather lead. They trot down Diagon Alley and out into muggle London, where there’s a park Albus likes at night--quiet and ringed by street lights, in a neighborhood where Albus imagines all the families have children and are sweetly happy with their lives. Albus has an inexplicable envy of muggles that can’t be traced to any of his interactions with them, that has nothing to do with the stilted, painful dinner with his Great Aunt Petunia when he was nine or the muggle girl he dated and then messily broke up with (“There’s something about me you’ll never understand” he told her, melodramatically) over one summer vacation in Spain when he was eleven.  
  
It’s early autumn and cool out, anyway, and so maybe it’s just nice to be walking regardless of the neighborhood. Teeth picks up a stick somewhere along the way, and carries it proudly all the way back to Diagon Alley, where Albus lets him chew it to splinters on the floor, because it’s a better use of chewing than if Teeth were chewing on his wand.  
  
Over the course of the next few days, Albus sorts through the library books Scorpius selected for him and creates an elaborately color coded system of note taking, mostly because the colors entertain him. He ends up with five sheets of parchment all scrawled with notes, under the headers _History (Crups)_ , _Biology + Breeding (Crups)_ , _History (Crup Fighting)_ , _Dog Fighting_ , and _Crup Culture (??)_.  
  
When he looks at them after the fact, it’s not very helpful. Albus draws a picture of Teeth in the corner of each page and magics them to scurry around, but seeing ink drawings of Teeth gnawing on his handwriting doesn’t actually improve his mood any.  
  
That’s how Monday afternoon finds Albus, and his mood is worsened when he remembers that he agreed to have dinner with Scorpius Malfoy (and his friends, yes) and _bring dessert_ and there’s nothing in his flat that could be reasonably expected to shape itself into dessert. When he gets off work he goes to the grocery and buys the ingredients for the chocolate cake Grandmum Weasley taught him to make, which also happens to be the only dessert he can actually make. Despite a run-in with the kitchen timer everything turns out, and Albus is shrinking the cake down to bring to Hugo and Stella’s when Teeth pisses all over the kitchen floor.  
  
Albus looks at him.  
  
“Teeth,” he says, in what he imagines is a firm tone, and Teeth sort of cowers and looks guilty, lowering his tail and wagging it apologetically.  
  
“Don’t do that, Teeth,” Albus says, and then he has to clean it up, and the whole time Teeth prances around looking pathetic and like he would probably like to be taken for a walk.  
  
Albus firecalls Stella.  
  
“Can I bring Teeth?” he asks, and she smiles at him benignly.  
  
“A crup in the house means food in the coffer,” she says, which is an old phrase from when crups were used for killing rats and at this point is little more than nonsense. Albus blinks.  
  
“Is that a yes?” he asks, because he can’t imagine someone would willingly let Teeth into their home.  
  
“If I say no, you’ll just say you can’t come because you need to take Teeth for a walk, and then there will be no dessert,” Stella states succinctly, and then she leaves the fire and effectively ends the call.  
  
She’s right. Albus puts the cake in his pocket and hitches Teeth to his lead, and the pair of them are off. Teeth looks pleased with himself, and trots along waving his tail jauntily. Albus wishes he were a crup.  
  
When they get to Hugo and Stella’s place, Scorpius is just arriving, sending a small rock upstairs to tap on the window. He’s dressed in muggle clothes, slim trousers and a dark wool jacket, and he looks--not good, precisely. He looks nice, though.  
  
“Potter,” he says nodding towards them dropping the pebble when they approach. “Potter’s crup.”  
  
“Malfoy,” Albus replies. “This is Teeth.”  
  
“Clever,” Scorpius says, raising a thin eyebrow, and this is the _thing_ about Scorpius, the very thing that makes him so exasperating.  
  
“I thought so,” Albus says, meeting Scorpius’ gaze and silently wishing Teeth would bite him, but then the door is opening and Hugo is there, to let them up.  
  
“Albus,” he says. “You brought Teeth.”  
  
“Stella said I could,” Albus says, trying not to sound defensive. “I also brought a cake.”  
  
“Grandmum’s recipe?” Hugo asks, and when Albus nods the affirmative Hugo sighs a little and lets them all in. When they get upstairs Albus unclasps the lead from Teeth’s collar, and he immediately goes to Scorpius and begins to nuzzle his leg, and then to _mount_ it, which.  
  
“He doesn’t usually do that,” Albus says, diving for Teeth’s collar and reigning him in.  
  
“I’m just special?” Scorpius asks, looking amused. Albus wishes he didn’t. Albus wishes he weren’t sitting on the floor, clutching his crup by the collar and looking up Scorpius’ long legs, but it doesn’t look like that wish is going to be granted, either.  
  
“You must be,” Stella says, sliding in from the kitchen. “Usually he just bites.”  
  
Albus gives Teeth a shake and gets to his feet.  
  
“Don’t let it go to your head,” he says, and Scorpius actually laughs, not at Albus but like maybe he actually thought that was a funny joke.  
  
It wasn’t funny, but Albus will take what he can get.  
  
“I brought cake,” he tells Stella, and they return it to its proper size and set it on the kitchen counter, and then they have dinner.  
  
Stella and Hugo insist that they should eat at the tiny table in the kitchen, because otherwise they’ll get too spread out, and so the four of them wind up seated in a neat square. Hugo plies them with wine, because Aunt Hermione believes in serving wine with dinner and raised her children to believe the same. And the conversation doesn’t exactly flow, but it comes. Albus manages to get Teeth to sit between his feet and holds him there, so he can neither molest Scorpius nor chew on furniture, and Stella switch from a conversation about new developments in the historical understanding of muggle-magic relations that Albus is only marginally interested in to one about muggle literature that Albus is very interested in.  
  
Albus remembers, then, why he always liked muggles. He tries to articulate it to the table at large--something about how magic isn’t quite the right substitute for imagination, something about the collection of Calvin and Hobbes comics Aunt Hermione gave him one Christmas when he was not terribly old, something else again. Stella and Hugo have heard it all before but Scorpius--Scorpius has things to say.  
  
Albus is surprised to find he doesn’t mind hearing them, and when he eases up and uses his hands to start articulating a point, Stella shoots him a grin.  
  
He knows what she’s trying to say. He wishes he didn’t. Albus always keeps his hands still unless he’s comfortable, because his fingers are long and thin and spidery and easy to talk with but somehow seem embarrassing. If Scorpius thought Albus was stupid already, he must think he’s terribly dumb now that he’s using his hands when words fail him, drawing sweeping explanations in the air. But Albus--Albus is not sure if he doesn’t care, or if he just doesn’t think Scorpius thinks he’s dumb. Either way, it’s disconcerting, because Albus is suddenly, unexpectedly comfortable.  
  
They get through dinner to the cake, which is thick and spongy, with cream between the layers and too much frosting. They used to only bring it out for birthdays when they were kids, but all the cousins loved it to much and insisted on it for every occasion, and Albus loved it most of all and insisted on learning to make it. Now he almost regrets that it’s the only dessert he knows how to make, because Scorpius is licking frosting off his fingers and making little mewling noises of pleasure, and Albus doesn’t want to think of Scorpius and frosting or those muted noises, which sound like muffled sex.  
  
“This is _delicious_ ,” Scorpius says around a forkful, and Stella nods.  
  
“Thanks for bringing it, Al,” she says. “Really elevates the occasion.”  
  
“Don’t get sick of it,” he says. “You know Lil’s birthday is in two weeks.”  
  
“Like we could,” Hugo says. “Seriously, you make it better than Grandmum.”  
  
“Blasphemy,” Albus says, but he’s grinning. “I have to do it well, since it’s the _only_ thing I make.”  
  
“Well, yes,” Stella replies. “Although you do put together an alright cheese sandwich.”  
  
“Cake and cheese sandwiches?” Scorpius says. “It’s a wonder you’re so scrawny.”  
  
“That’s Uncle Harry,” Hugo says mildly as he wipes crumbs off his plate with his thumb.  
  
It’s true. Albus would actually prefer not to talk about it--the untamable hair, the wiry frame, the terrible eyesight. Everything he got from his father makes him uncomfortable, because while Harry wears it well, the features seem to fit Albus like another man’s clothes.  
  
“My father used to call you Harry Potter’s miniature,” Scorpius offers, and Albus frowns at him.  
  
“Yeah,” he says, trying not to betray how little he likes that moniker, which _The Daily Prophet_ gave him as well. “I get that sometimes. Pity I was in Slytherin.”  
  
“Pity I was in Ravenclaw,” Scorpius says, meeting Albus’ gaze, and for a moment Albus understands.  
  
Draco Malfoy is a recluse, since his wife died or maybe before, but Albus saw him a few times at Kings’ Cross, a few times in the paper. And, yes, he could see how he might not be the only one wearing his father’s features without actually being able to fit his father’s shoes, for good or ill.  
  
Stella saves Albus from trying to think this through too deeply, slipping into a new subject, thanking Albus and Scorpius for coming, saying other things--Albus only picks up every other word, maybe. It might be the wine or the conversation, but Albus is tired. Exhausted. Not thinking clearly, which is maybe why he actually asks Scorpius for help.  
  
“Think you could help me with with my crup fighting research?” Albus says, but only when they’re leaving--when Teeth is back on his leash and only the gold-tinged streetlamps illuminate Scorpius’ thin face, fine hair. Cast in gold Scorpius looks--Albus’ first thought is that he looks warmer, and that might push him, too.  
  
“That’s my job,” Scorpius says wryly. “Come by the library tomorrow.”  
  
Albus nods, and then he tugs at Teeth’s leash and the pair of them set off down down the street, until Scorpius catches up with him, matching his stride.  
  
“I’m going this way, too,” he offers after they’ve been walking more or less together for a moment, even though that should be obvious. Albus hitches up his collar against the cold breeze, and nods before he realizes Scorpius might not be able to see it.  
  
“I figured,” he says. Teeth’s toenails clatter across the cobblestones, and if there’s anything else to say Albus doesn’t know what it is. They reach Albus’ flat before where ever it is that Scorpius lives, and stop outside the heavy door.  
  
“See you tomorrow,” Albus offers, and Scorpius nods.  
  
“Sure,” he replies, and then Teeth trails Albus up the thin staircase to home, to bed.

  
In the morning there’s nothing to regret, just breakfast to eat and a dog who needs to be walked; and then, after, Albus pulls on his Auror robes and goes to work, goes from his office up to the library.  
  
“I wasn’t sure you’d show,” Scorpius says, and Albus shrugs. He has a pile of books and his sheaf of notes, which he spreads out for Scorpius to examine.  
  
“Nice cartoons,” Scorpius says, glancing at them, and somehow, _somehow_ , Albus has the grace not to blush.  
  
“Yeah,” he replies. “Let’s just get to it, then.”  
  
Scorpius splays Albus’ notes across the table, and then he sorts the books by subject and splits the pile between the pair of them. Scorpius draws a tangled web of connections around Albus’ notes, and does a neat piece of spellwork that makes the whole thing three-dimensional, and, somehow, comprehensible despite it all.  
  
Albus’ drawings of Teeth, meanwhile, tug at the more tenuous connecting thoughts as they scurry around.  
  
“These are good, you know,” Scorpius says, prodding one of the drawings with his wand.  
  
“Silly, though,” Albus says, shrugging. Two of the drawings of Teeth have gotten into a scuffle with one another. To win a crup fight one crup has to get the fork of the other’s tail, bite it. Albus points to the fighting pair.  
  
“I’ll bet you,” he says.  
  
“For what?” Scorpius asks, and Albus shrugs.  
  
“A sickle,” he says, and Scorpius shrugs.  
  
“I was thinking something a little more interesting,” he says, leaning forward on his elbows. “But, you know.”  
  
“Interesting how?” Albus asks, despite himself. Scorpius’ glasses are slipping down his nose, glinting silver in the library lights, and he’s looking very intently at Albus’ face, like he’s waiting for something.  
  
Like he’s fascinated.  
  
“Interesting,” Scorpius says. “Like--”  
  
“The fight’s already over,” Albus interjects, pointing at the crups. The one closer to Scorpius has a firm grasp on the other’s tail, and the pair of them tumble into a ball, yipping silently.  
  
“Right,” Scorpius says, and the he pushes his glasses up his nose and flips open another volume.  
  
Albus knows what just happened. He just wishes he understood it.  
  
In Slytherin--it’s not really worth talking about Slytherin, because Sean was a Gryffindor, and wore his emotions on his red and gold sleeve. But in Slytherin, too, you always knew what people wanted, because they tried to get it. Not once, but several times, and if they were cock-blocked by an early win in an animated illustration of a crup fight, they pressed on.  
  
Scorpius doesn’t. He starts taking notes again, gesturing at their floating diagram, and then he suggests other sources and disappears to retrieve them, leaving Albus to his thoughts. It’s not--if they hadn’t gone to school together, and if Scorpius hadn’t been such an _ass_ , if they’d just met at Hugo’s bar (or at the other bar, the one Albus had frequented after he and Sean broke up, with his eyes and hair magicked to something less distinctive because it was not good for the rep, to have people know he danced like that).  
  
There are a lot of possibilities, but the one that is playing out right now--Albus just can’t see it working out.  
  
Albus is a Slytherin. He protects himself.  
  
When Scorpius comes back to the table Albus asks which books he should work on, and takes them and reads them. He does not steal glances at Scorpius when he thinks he’s not looking, and he certainly does not stretch his legs out beneath the table in case they might brush. Because, for one, that’s so Hogwarts, and for two--Albus just said he wouldn’t do that. He just decided. He stands by his decisions, even the worst ones (and there have been plenty of worst ones).  
  
But making a decision doesn’t mean that Albus doesn’t want to find out what Scorpius was trying to do, and why. He lets the idea percolate through him--Scorpius Malfoy wants him. Or wanted him for a moment. Or was trying, weakly to flirt with him. Either way, it’s something.  
  
With Sean there had hardly even been flirting--Rose had invited Albus to a Gryffindor party. There’d been something in the punch. Sean and Albus had wound up pressed together in a plush chair in the corner, quietly licking their way into one another’s mouths. And Sean wasn’t like Henryk. After that, they were an item, as they say.  
  
The break up last year ago had been either rough or inevitable. Rose said inevitable, Stella thought rough, and so when Albus gets home from research with Scorpius, Rose is the one he calls.  
  
Rose had gone to Bulgaria to work with Uncle Charlie after graduation, and from there she’d been moved to a reserve up in Norway to work with Norwegian Ridgebacks. When she answers the firecall she has a long streak of soot on her cheek, and her hair is twisted up into a bun on the top of her head with frizzy strands escaping.  
  
“Al,” she says, catching her breath. “What’s the occasion, cuz?”  
  
“How are you?”  
  
“Skip the formalities,” she says. “I know you want something.”  
  
Albus looks at her for a moment.  
  
“I am doing well,” she says. “It’s mating season up here. The females hold eggs over winter, and they mate in midair--you should come up and see it sometime.”  
  
“And now what do you want?” she finishes, grinning.  
  
“I was wondering why you were so sure Sean and I were going to split,” Albus says, and Rose’s grin broadens.  
  
“Coming to your good cousin Rose for relationship advice?” she asks. “Poor Albus.”  
  
“Shut up,” he says mildly. “Talk.”  
  
Rose has always had a weird habit of magicking little balls of blue light and floating them around while she talks. It was the first spell Aunt Hermione taught her, and it’s been like that since then--there’s always one or two, trailing after her.  
  
She got in trouble with the Ministry about it nearly every summer.  
  
Now one orbits around her head, and then bobs in the air when Rose taps herself on the chin with her wand.  
  
“Did you ever think you might be afraid of being gay?” Rose asks, then cuts him off before he can answer. “Because of Uncle Harry. Because if you don’t marry and have 2.5 children to carry on the Potter line you’re afraid you’ll disappoint him.”  
  
“That’s not true,” Albus says. “I’ve never wanted--”  
  
“No, but you never wanted to commit, either,” Rose says. “And Sean did.”  
  
That’s true. Albus knows it’s true, because Sean’s living with the guy he started dating after Albus, and that was a step Albus was never willing to take--moving in together, combining their possessions in one flat. He liked waking up in the tangle of Sean’s arms, but it felt safer to keep certain things separate, like the other apartment was a safety net or an escape rope.  
  
“Some people just don’t like commitment,” Albus hears himself saying. “Not everyone needs long term things.”  
  
“And if you believe that, it wasn’t going to work out with Sean anyway,” Rose says succinctly. “But is that what you really believe?”  
  
“It’s not because of Dad,” Albus says.  
  
“You’re an Auror because of him,” Rose replies. “I don’t see how this is any different.”  
  
Sometimes, Albus kind of hates Rose. She’s sitting there, probably kneeling in front of the fireplace, with her hair frizzing out and her little ball of blue light, and she’s saying things that are sensible, that might be true, but that Albus does not want to hear.  
  
“Albus,” she says when there have been several beats of silence between them, broken only by crackling flames. “Your family loves you. You can be whoever you want, and they--we--still will. I just want to make sure you’re being who you want to be.”  
  
Being whoever he wants to be is terrifying. Albus’ ambition had always been for some nebulous state, for _respect_. His father was the most respected man he knew. It followed that if he could be like Harry Potter--but he wasn’t.  
  
“Yeah,” Albus says. “I’ll think about it.”  
  
Rose smiles at him wanly, looks like she wants to reach through the fire and hug him, and then they say their good byes.  
  
Albus is still sitting on the floor, his back wedged against the sofa. He calls Teeth over and scratches him behind the ears. He wonders.  
  
He doesn’t even know what he’d do if he weren’t an Auror.  
  
Albus falls asleep like that, slumped together with Teeth in front of the fire, and he wakes to the crup licking his face. He is, not unexpectedly, late to work, but no one seems to care. When he gets up to the library he waves in Scorpius’ direction and then retreats to a table in the back, curling his legs up beneath him and pressing onward with books, notes spread on the table around him.  
  
Scorpius comes to join him sometime before Albus breaks for lunch, settling into a chair opposite Albus with little more than a nod of acknowledgment and a few moderately insightful comments about crup fighting.  
  
It’s strangely comfortable, and when lunch does roll around Albus asks Scorpius if he’d like to come along. There’s a muggle cafe two blocks down from the Ministry that Albus like, small and quiet and never quite clean. Scorpius looks skeptical, but he comes along almost despite himself.  
  
“Are you sure no one will be able to tell?” he asks when they’re outside on the sidewalk. Albus keeps muggle clothes in his cubicle, and he and Scorpius manage to transfigure a spare pair of trousers and an oxford to fit.  
  
“You were wearing muggle clothing just the other night,” Albus says. “For dinner with Stella and Hugo?”  
  
“But then I wasn’t going to see actual muggles,” Scorpius replies, weaving to dodge a man coming towards them. Then he pauses to examine his wrist. “I feel like the stitching is inauthentic.”  
  
“The stitching,” Albus echoes.  
  
“On the cuffs here,” Scorpius says. “The transfiguration altered it--because my arms are shorter than yours, and now it’s all--”  
  
“Malfoy,” Albus interjects.  
  
“What?”  
  
“No one’s going to look at the stitching on your cuffs,” Albus says.  
  
“That’s fine for you to say,” Scorpius grumbles. “Your shirt’s intact.”  
  
“Yes,” Albus says. “It is.”  
  
“And your trousers,” Scorpius says, twisting. “I think our arses are different shapes. Are any Muggles looking at my arse?”  
  
“No,” Albus says. “But the will be, if you don’t keep trying to look at it yourself.”  
  
Albus is. Albus is looking at Scorpius’ arse. If anything, they transfigured the trousers too tight, and the pull of the tucked-in shirt neatly displays the curve of Scorpius’ waist.  
  
“Right, Potter,” Scorpius says, and keeps walking.  
  
“You’ve passed it,” Albus says, halting in front of a storefront.  
  
“Thanks for telling me,” Scorpius replies, coming back a few paces to rejoin him. “Helpful, you are.”  
  
“I try,” Albus says, and pushes the door open for Scorpius to go inside.  
  
It’s Albus’ treat, because Scorpius doesn’t carry muggle money.  
  
“Does it surprise you that I don’t carry muggle money?” Scorpius asks when they’ve seated, and Albus shrugs.  
  
“Not particularly,” he replies.  
  
“It’s not that I hate muggles--” Scorpius starts. “I know, my family. I just don’t know much about them.”  
  
“Didn’t you take Muggle Studies?” Albus asks. He knows Scorpius took Muggle Studies. They were in the same class.  
  
“That was the only class you ever did better than me in,” Scorpius says dryly. “You know I took it.”  
  
“Why were you always such an arse about that?” Albus asks. “Grades?”  
  
Scorpius glances down at the table, then flickers his eyes up towards Albus’ face.  
  
“It was what I was good at, I guess,” he says. “I was kind of a show-off.”  
  
Albus snorts.  
  
“I didn’t think you were prone to understatement.”  
  
“I’m not,” Scorpius says. He might be blushing, which--is not a bad look, really, a tint of color on the sharp Malfoy cheekbones.  
  
“You tell me,” Scorpius says, then. “About your cartoons.”  
  
“What?” Albus asks. “The drawings of Teeth?”  
  
“And your entire family,” Scorpius says. “And nearly everyone we went to school with.”  
  
“You’ve seen those?” Albus asks. It’s true the margins of most of his notes and some of his essays at Hogwarts were littered with doodles. Albus had always been quite handy with animation spells, but that was not the sort of thing Hogwarts tested with any particular alacrity, so it had never mattered. Albus still has binders of cartoons, filed away in boxes beneath his bed.  
  
“It’s no wonder you never did well in most of our classes,” Scorpius says, hiding a smirk. “You were never paying attention.”  
  
“Yeah--” Albus says, trailing off thoughtfully. “But I did well enough to become an Auror.”  
  
“Yes,” Scorpius replies. “That was certainly a surprise.”  
  
“Was it?” Albus asks, narrowing his eyes.  
  
“That’s just not what I expected you to end up as,” Scorpius replies.  
  
“Because I’m too dumb?” Albus asks. He scowls at Scorpius, thinning his lips. “Because that is--”  
  
“No,” Scorpius interjects, spitting out the syllable quickly. “Albus. I just didn’t think that was what you wanted to do.”  
  
“Because I’m a Slytherin?” Albus asks, and Scorpius actually has the gall to laugh.  
  
“Albus,” he says, again. Albus’ _name_ , not Potter, which Albus is not entirely sure how long he’s been saying. “Most of my relatives are in Slytherin. I’m talking about _you_ , not your house.”  
  
Albus had lifted one of his hands, like somehow that would enable him to articulate things more clearly, but now he lets it fall to the table.  
  
“You don’t know me,” he says, softly. “You don’t.”  
  
“I--” Scorpius starts, but Albus cuts him off.  
  
“This is none of your business, Malfoy,” he says. “It’s not your place to judge.”  
  
“Right,” Scorpius says. “Of course not.”  
  
Albus looks at him, but his face is impossible to read. The rest of their meal passes in silence, and when they get back to the library Scorpius goes to his desk and Albus stays at his table, sorting through books and adding to their web of notes until the work day is over and he can wrap up his work and go home.  
  
He makes a cheese sandwich for dinner. Contrary to popular belief, he can cook other things, but it’s drizzling outside and this is something he doesn’t need to think about.  
  
The bar he goes to for dancing (for hook ups, if he’s honest with himself) is on the fringe between Diagon and Knockturn Alleys, down a flight of stairs. If it has a name that Albus has forgotten, brick walls with tattered posters and more kinds of beer than anywhere else in either alley. Light comes from floating orbs in dull, warm colors--amber, ochre, maroon, mahogany.  
  
Albus has always liked it, because it’s dim and noisy and the music is good. It’s just a club, really, and changing his hair and eyes--had to do with being a Potter, more than thinking what he was up to was particularly shameful. It wouldn’t be, if he weren’t a Potter. But on a slow news day, even dull Potter news made the _Prophet_ , and Albus Potter sleeping with random men was somewhere north of dull, edging towards interesting, if taudry. Because Potters didn’t sleep with random men. Potters saved the world and married their Hogwarts sweethearts. Potters did good, wholesome, _useful_ jobs and lived similarly wholesome lives.  
  
That was not, strictly speaking, the truth.  
  
Albus calls Lily.  
  
When Lily wound up in Slytherin Albus was sure everyone blamed him for actually liking his house, and he didn’t really know what to do with that. Instead he wrapped her green and silver scarf around her neck and pulled her tight into a hug, then he set her loose amongst the snakes.  
  
They didn’t stand a chance.  
  
Lily played Seeker at Hogwarts, and she was recruited by the Ballycastle Bats before she even graduated. She dropped out.  
  
“Of course,” she said, whenever anyone commented (Grandmum Weasley, Aunt Hermione, Uncle Percy--Uncle George had clapped her on the back and welcomed her to the fold). “What else would I do?”  
  
Lily can’t take his firecall because she’s training, but she calls him back that night when he’s already asleep.  
  
“Al,” she says. “Did I wake you? You should really put on a shirt, don’t want to scar me for life with your pasty chest, yeah?”  
  
Albus mumbles into coherence, blinking at his sister. She has always been the youngest. That’s really the only way to describe her.  
  
“Lily,” he says.  
  
“That’s my name,” she replies brightly. She grins, waiting.  
  
“Did you ever feel guilty about being in Slytherin?”  
  
“Merlin, Al, it’s just a house,” she says.  
  
“You don’t feel like you disappointed Mum and Dad? We were all over the _Prophet_ \--‘House of Potter Goes Bad.’”  
  
“That was my favorite headline,” Lily muses. “But Al, don’t be an arse. They don’t care. I’m the best seeker since _ever_ , and you’re Albus, and no one gives two shits about it.”  
  
Albus stared at her. Lily _was_ the best seeker since ever, and Albus was--Albus. Which was actually kind of depressing.  
  
“Stop stewing,” she commands from the fire. “Albus Severus Potter, whatever you’re angsting about, just stop. You’re not old enough to have a midlife crisis.”  
  
“Do you think I should quit my job?” Albus asks, and Lily squints one eye at him.  
  
“Are you having a midlife crisis?” she says.  
  
“No,” he replies. “Just the regular sort.”  
  
“Do whatever the hell you want,” Lily says. “I have to go.”  
  
And then she leaves. Albus didn’t really expect anything else.  
  
He sleeps in front of the fire again, with Teeth curled up against his back, breathing warmth and smelling of crup.  
  
He’s on time for work this time, though just barely. He spends the day reanimating the notes he and Scorpius created and allowing them to congeal into an essay, and when he’s done he puts the scroll inside a drawer of his desk and decides that he’ll bring it over to Scorpius for review before submitting it.  
  
But that can wait until Monday. That needs to wait until Monday, actually, to give Albus some time to order his thoughts.  
  
Friday night he goes to the bar. It’s a decision he feels like he already made, pulling on his trousers in the usual way, pulling on a thin green jumper. He changes neither his hair nor his eyes, and doesn’t look in the mirror before he leaves--he knows how he looks, which is like himself.  
  
Like a young Harry Potter, they say. Albus likes to think his glasses are a little more stylish.  
  
He feels conspicuous when he descends the stairs into the club, but when he gets there--he’s not. No one turns to stare when he enters the room. The bartender glances at him and says nothing, just slides the requested pint down the bar and grins as Albus tosses it back.  
  
And then there’s the dancing. Albus has never been good, precisely, but it’s not the sort of dancing you need to be good at.  
  
When he sees Scorpius, there’s another man’s hands on Albus’ hips, thumbs teasing at the waistband of his denims. Scorpius is a shock of bright white hair on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall, arms crossed, wearing the clothes Albus transfigured for him one day prior. His hips are angled forward and his hair’s been rubbed into soft peaks and he’s looking directly at Albus.  
  
When their eyes meet, and Albus turns around and puts his arms across the strange man’s shoulders, tries not to think about it. It’s easier this way, to match his hips with a stranger rather than thinking of the play of Scorpius’ body against his, about the fact that Scorpius is wearing his clothes for no reason Albus can fathom.  
  
He makes the paper that morning, one line on the fifth page (‘Cauldron of Gossip’). It’s not as bad as he expected. When he has dinner with his parents Sunday afternoon, they don’t even mention it.  
  
“Albus,” Harry is saying. “I have it on good authority that your next job will be slightly more interesting.”  
  
Albus pauses to chew his food and revise his thoughts.  
  
“I think I might quit my job,” he says, and Harry looks at him sharply across the dinner plates he prepared.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I’m not sure I’m an Auror,” he says.  
  
Things fall quiet, then, and Albus desperately wishes Lily or James were there to diffuse the tension, but James has an odd bit of weekend work to do, and Lily is traveling with the Bats.  
  
“Really, Albus?” his mother asks. Albus is trying to read the expressions on both of their faces at once. He’s always been good at telling when his parents are angry, and lying his way out of it, but they don’t look angry now--they just look--they just look.  
  
“What will you do?” his father asks, and Albus thinks he recognizes his expression as patience.  
  
“My drawings,” he says. “Cartoons.”  
  
“There’s money in that?” Ginny asks, and she sounds so calm that it startles Albus, frightens him.  
  
“Are you really okay with this?” he asks.  
  
“Of course,” Harry says. “Merlin, Al, you know we just want you to be happy.”  
  
They both smile fondly. It’s so--these are his parents. Albus _knew_ these were his parents. He still expected something more, some sort of drama, some sort of--he expected someone to imply he was less, but instead of that his mother is scooping peas onto her plate, and his father is offering him potatoes.  
  
They hug him by turn when he leaves, even though they both know he hates it.  
  
Albus firecalls Lily when he gets home, sitting on the floor with Teeth.  
  
“Al,” she says. “What’s happening?”  
  
“I told mum and dad I’m quitting the Aurors,” he says, and she grins.  
  
“Oh, good on you then,” she says, clapping her hands.  
  
“It’s not really that big of a deal, is it?” he says, and she shrugs.  
  
“Not really, no,” she replies. “You were always more interested in the stories about being in the Auror Corps than the actual--”  
  
“Yes,” he says. “The stories.”  
  
“Are you going to write comics, then?” she says, and Albus scowls.  
  
“How’d you know?”  
  
“Al,” she says. “ _Everyone_ knows. You never liked anything else as well. Also, I’m uniquely perceptive.”  
  
Albus wants to punch her, but he settles for shaking his head.  
  
“I don’t know why I put up with you,” he says.  
  
“Because I’m your sister,” she says. “Like you ever had a choice.”  
  
After they say goodbye Albus scratches Teeth behind the ears and goes to bed, properly, this time. Teeth hops up sometime in the middle of the night, wriggling up towards the pillow.  
  
There’s business to take care of on Monday, but Scorpius isn’t there.  
  
“You can owl it to him,” says the witch at the desk, the one with the fingernails from the other day.  
  
“No, it’s fine,” Albus says.  
  
“Well, I can hold it here,” she continues.  
  
“No,” Albus says, clutching the scroll. “I’ll bring it back.”  
  
He turns to go, and then swivels around.  
  
“Where’s Scorpius live?” he asks.  
  
The librarian with the fingernails looks at him, blinking evenly.  
  
“I’m not at liberty to disclose that information,” she says.  
  
“I need to see him,” Albus says, because it’s _true_.  
  
“He’s not here right now,” the other librarian says. “You can owl him the scroll.”  
  
“Owl him this,” Albus says, instead, taking out a small sheet and writing _Where do you live? -ASP_ on it. The other librarian scowls at him, but eventually she whistles for an owl and sends it off, and then sits down at one of the tables and waits.  
  
The owl comes back thirteen minutes later, precisely, and the other librarian hands Albus the note, hiding a smirk.  
  
_That’s none of your business, Potter._  
  
Albus scowls, flips the note over, and scrawls.  
  
_I put in fortnight’s notice this morning. I need to talk to you._  
  
The next note as a Floo address. Albus tries not to look smug. He fails.  
  
“He’s ill,” the other librarian says, but Albus is already going through the big glass-and-oak doors and back to the lift.  
  
The other librarian turns out not to have been lying. When Scorpius answers the floo Albus can already see his nose is red, and when Albus comes through it’s apparent that Scorpius is wrapped in a soft robe of the sort muggles wear, and has wool socks sagging around his ankles.  
  
“Oh,” Albus says. “I suppose I’ll--go, then.”  
  
“No, don’t,” Scorpius says. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”  
  
“It looks bad,” Albus replies, and Scorpius shrugs.  
  
“Dad sent me potions,” he says. “I took them.”  
  
“Ah--well, then,” Albus says, pausing to look around. Scorpius’ flat looks a lot like his own, with more books. But there’s the pictures in frames, the posters tacked up on the walls (one for The Toaster Ovens, Albus’ personal favorite band and a result of the recent vogue for naming bands after muggle devices), the tatty furniture. “I just came to apologize.”  
  
“Did you?” Scorpius asks, and Albus--Albus doesn’t know what else he came here for.  
  
“And to ask if you could revise my crup fighting report,” Albus says, thrusting the scroll forward.  
  
Scorpius stares at it, at Albus, and then reaches out to take it.  
  
It is terrible. It is painful. It is awkward. Albus flees.  
  
And then he feels guilty when he gets back to his flat, because Scorpius was clearly _sick_ , and Albus crashed into his life and demanded he read a terribly dull report about crup fighting.  
  
So he makes chicken soup. He left work early, he has time. He owes Scorpius something, otherwise he’ll be indebted. He’ll drop it off, it’s not a big deal, he has a chicken in the freezer, anyway.  
  
It’s not true, about the chicken in the freezer, but no one has to know.  
  
Albus doesn’t know all the spells for soup, so he improvises a little and it ends up alright. Or it looks alright, anyway, and tastes alright, so he shrinks the pot down and floos back to Scorpius’.  
  
Draco Malfoy is there.  
  
“Oh,” Albus says. “Sorry.”  
  
Draco looks at him blankly and then says, “Are you here to see Scorp? He’s asleep.”  
  
“I just--brought soup,” Albus says quickly, fishing the pot out of his pocket. “I shrunk it.”  
  
“I can see that,” Draco says.  
  
“Right,” Albus says, bringing the pot back to size. “Tell him he can bring the pot to work, or something.”  
  
“Or something,” Draco echoes, and he sounds so damned _amused_ that Albus absolutely needs to leave.  
  
“Cheers,” he says, and does that.  
  
Albus goes to Stella and Hugo’s next, because he’s trying to tell everyone that matters about his change of careers before the _Prophet_ gets hold of the information, and because maybe Stella can answer some questions about Scorpius that need to be resolved.  
  
Stella is there, curled up in an chair reading with her legs hooked over the armrests.  
  
“Al,” she says, turning when he arrives in the Floo. “Hugo’s at The Flying Ford.”  
  
“Yeah--” Albus starts. “I was just--I’m quitting the Aurors.”  
  
“Lovely,” she beams. “That’s lovely, Albus. Scorp will be so pleased.”  
  
Albus blinks at her and perches himself on the armrest of another chair.  
  
“He actually already knows.”  
  
“Does that mean you two are getting on, then?” Stella asks. She’s smiling in that way she does, benign and frightening and like she knows something you don’t.  
  
“Not really, no,” Albus says. “But we had lunch the other day, and he mentioned--I thought I ought to tell him.”  
  
Stella frowns at him, then.  
  
“He likes you, you know,” she says.  
  
“What?” Albus asks.  
  
Stella shrugs.  
  
“He just--he likes you, Albus,” she says. “Don’t mess around with him.”  
  
“ _What_?” Albus repeats.  
  
“Albus,” Stella sighs. “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but it’s been forever, and just--let him down easy, if you need to.”  
  
“Do you remember by break up with Sean?” Albus asks, and Stella snorts.  
  
“Of course I do,” she says. “It wasn’t _that_ long ago.”  
  
“Did you think--was it my fault?”  
  
“Yes, Al,” Stella says. “It was.”  
  
“What if I do it again?”  
  
Stella meets his eyes, and hers are bright and brimming with hope.  
  
“You don’t know that, Al,” she says. “You try. If you’re willing to try, that’s enough.”  
  
Albus desperately hopes that Draco has gone home, and Floos back to Scorpius’.  
  
“Thanks for the soup,” Scorpius says when Albus floos in. “Dad tested it for poison and said there was none, so.”  
  
“Right,” Albus says. “I must’ve forgotten that ingredient.”  
  
“He said you can never trust a Slytherin,” Scorpius continues.  
  
“I’m trying to escape house stereotypes,” Albus replies.  
  
“How so?” Scorpius asks. He’s sitting on the couch, still wearing his socks that sag around the ankles, still pink about the nose. He’s looking at Albus with nothing much in his face, like he’s tired and drained of emotion, and Albus suspects this may be the wrong time to do this, but he doesn’t know of a better time.  
  
Albus doesn’t actually know how he’s trying to escape house stereotypes. He sinks down onto the couch besides Scorpius, looks over at him.  
  
“Did you like the soup?”  
  
“Good as mum’s,” Scorpius replies. “But she didn’t--you know--make soup.”  
  
“Right,” Albus replies. They sit there in silence for a few minutes and then a few minutes more.  
  
“Did you have something else to say?” Scorpius asks. Albus is still wearing his coat, and Scorpius is wearing a robe and socks, and Albus isn’t sure what he meant to say, but it’s there, something’s there.  
  
“Scorpius,” he says finally. “I like you.”  
  
Scorpius is silent, watching him, not patient, exactly, but waiting.  
  
“I’m kind of an arse,” he says. “Sometimes.”  
  
Scorpius kisses him, putting one hand on the back of his neck, snake-quick, and pulling their mouths together. He tastes like dill and lemon and Pep-Up Potion, and he’s moving his mouth against Albus’ like he’s trying to say something.  
  
“I’m sick,” Scorpius supplies when they pull apart. “Sorry about that. It’s probably contagious.”  
  
Albus will care slightly more when he falls ill the next week and it turns out that Scorpius doesn’t know how to make any sort of soup, but for now he pecks up on his pinkened nose and kisses him again, thoroughly.  
  
“So we can try this?” he says.  
  
“Yes,” Scorpius replies. “We can.”


End file.
